Utility Restores Power to Central Chicago

Commonwealth Edison had restored electricity to Chicago’s central business district by Friday, but small outages continued to plague the city as Mayor Richard M. Daley considered what action to take against the utility for Thursday’s major blackout.

The company responded to the latest outage by announcing the resignation of its executive in charge of distribution and hiring an outside contractor to examine its system.

Power was fully restored to areas in and around the business district Friday, but the company said it continued to experience minor problems, with three small outages affecting more than 1,000 customers.

The power outage during business hours Thursday hit banks, exchanges, retail businesses and apartment buildings in the city’s financial district. It caused traffic gridlock downtown, forced police headquarters to use emergency generators and interrupted trials at the courthouse.

Some observers speculated Chicago could become the third major U.S. city in a month, after New York and San Francisco, to demand reparations from its electrical utility for damages caused by a blackout.

But a spokeswoman for the mayor said Daley was still deciding what steps to take against ComEd, a unit of Unicom Corp.

Daley railed against the utility and its management during a news conference Thursday, demanding improvements and prior notification if another blackout was in the offing. Many disabled people had to be helped or carried from high-rise office buildings that were plunged into darkness.

Paul McCoy, Commonwealth Edison’s vice president in charge of the distribution system, resigned in the wake of the outage.

“Obviously, if we had been performing better, he would still be here,” said Robert Manning, a vice president of Unicom.

Manning, who will take over some of McCoy’s duties, said the company is bringing in contractors to help find trouble spots in the system.

In July, New York City filed a lawsuit seeking penalties of at least $3 million against Consolidated Edison for a blackout earlier in the month that left about 200,000 Manhattan residents without power in the midst of a killer heat wave.

San Francisco officials delivered a letter to officials of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. on July 29 demanding $1.75 million for a blackout in December 1998 that affected more than 370,000 customers and halted trading at the Pacific Stock Exchange.

Utility analysts said economic growth has led to increased demand for power. Electricity providers in older U.S. cities have struggled to upgrade their infrastructure to keep pace.

They said ComEd, which serves 3.4 million customers in northern Illinois, has promised to spend about $2 billion upgrading its system over the next five years.

An organization that represents Chicago building managers estimated that Thursday’s blackout, which lasted 11 hours in one district, resulted in $100 million in lost business for area companies.

Also Friday, ComEd was sued by two companies that claimed they lost money because of the outages and a man who said he injured his knee as he stumbled around in the dark.

Manning said the utility is not legally responsible for damages because of power outages.